Jury duty, feeling relaxed, Diamond & Pearl catchup, psyched for the new Fantastic 4 movie, and so on...

Today I had my one day off this week cause I was scheduled to do jury duty and had requested the day off. The drag was that I had to get up at 5:30 to be ready to leave and be at court at 8. Papa gave me a ride, dropping me off at the nearby Food for Less cause it was only around 7am. I bought a soda and some batteries, then went across the street, sat in Starbucks for a few minutes (initially I was going to use my computer there but then remembered that you have to pay to use the wi-fi there), and then walked to the court.

I was prepared to be there all day. I had brought my laptop, my DS, a couple DVD's (the R.O.D. OAV and the movie One Night With the King), a couple books (The Golden Ball and Other Stories by Agatha Christie and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling), and my recently-purchased newest manga, the fourth and final volume of Read or Dream, which I've been waiting to get.

It turned out they only had three cases to call, and one of them settled without going to trial, and I didn't get called for the other two, so after that they said those of us who were still left could leave. This was around 11 a.m. All I'd done was work on a video (my Kawabe Chieco tribute), played Code Lyoko on my DS (using my finger and my house key for the touch screen, since I somehow lost my stylus in the confusion of getting on the Coaster last Wednesday; I'm just going to play Code Lyoko till I get a new stylus, cause Pokemon Ranger involves drawing circles with the stylus, and I'm afraid of scratching up the screen with my key), and listened to a MuggleCast for a little bit.

So I got some lunch to go at El Pollo Loco and took the bus home.

I went to bed early last night cause I was tired and had one of my annoying temples-headaches, and I feel much more relaxed. It's great.

I got fed up with how slow my computer was being, so I went downstairs to watch some of the stuff I'd DVR'd so I could delete it (which makes it easier to make sure other stuff gets recorded, both for me and for other members of the family). I watched an episode of On the Lot (a reality show I'm getting into) and several eps of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, which I have on "record series" so I don't miss a minute. (I would do that with the new season of Code Lyoko too, but Tech Links has plans to have rips of the episodes the same day they air, so I can just download the eps and watch them that way -- plus they do re-runs of the episodes at 11pm so I can watch them after work).

Pokémon Diamond and Pearl is just as fun as one would expect Pokémon to be. I didn't like the English theme song when I first saw the English opening on YouTube, but it's starting to grow on me. I also like the new female lead Dawn, because she is human. She has struggles. She's a coordinator like May from the Advanced seasons (who also had struggles with her Pokémon early on, I think). She also wears rather extravagant outfits for her contests.

In this season, Ash has a new rival once again. Since Gary rarely appeared in his first season (season 1) and didn't appear much after that (his latest one was at the end of Battle Frontier, when he told Ash about Sinnoh), I was kind of hoping he would get a new rival. His new rival is a guy named Paul who is a big jerk. He has a big attitude, and he has a way bigger disregard for being friends with Pokemon than Gary did. In fact, he scans Pokéballs after he captures Pokemon to find out how strong a Pokemon is, and if he feels it's not up to par, he just RELEASES IT! Yeah. He doesn't even keep it and train it to make it get stronger. So far he just has his starter Chimchar, a fire-type monkey-like Pokemon, as well as Elekid and Ursaring, and (according to the opening) a Murkrow.

I saw another preview for the new Fantastic Four movie Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, which comes out this weekend. I really want to see it, as well as Nancy Drew, which also comes out this weekend (but my mom wants to see that with me so I'm going to hold on it). It looks pretty cool. I saw in a little article on it in Disney Adventures magazine that interviewed the guy who plays The Human Torch where he was asked if the Silver Surfer is a good guy or a bad guy. He said he couldn't say, which means it must be a key to the plot.

I'm tired so I'm going to go now. 'Night.

Edit 6/14/07 at 9:36 am: I forgot to mention this last night -- Team Rocket has a new motto this season. Of course, it was only a matter of time till this happened. They have gone through two mottoes before this: the Kanto/Johto one and the Hoenn one. (I know there are only two cause there's only two variations on the "Team Rocket Theme" BGM so far, and the theme usually changes when the motto changes)

I wrote down the new motto so I could post it somewhere (probably on Silvanmare when I revamp it). This is where being able to rewind and pause live TV comes in really handy. Here it is:

Jessie: Listen! Is that a voice I hear?
James: It's speaking to me loud and clear
Jessie: On the wind... [Wikipedia says "Floating on the wind"...just checked...I'll double-check that with the show]
James: Past the stars...
Meowth: In your ear!
Jessie: Bringing chaos at a breakneck pace
James: Dashing hope, putting fear in its place
Jessie: A rose by any other name's just as sweet!
James: When everything's worse, our work is complete
Jessie: Jessie!
James: James!
Meowth: Meowth! That's a name!
Jessie: Putting the do-gooders in their place!
James: Team Rocket!
Meowth: In your face!

Then of course, Jessie's Wobbuffet and James's Mime Jr. chime in at the end. Oh btw James has a new Pokemon again (Jessie still has Seviper from the Hoenn seasons), a grass-type called Carnivine (a combo of "carnivore" and "vine") that resembles a Venus Fly-Trap. Like Victreebel, Chimecho, and Cacnea before it, Carnivine has a fun little habit of showing extreme but painful affection towards James when being called out to battle (in the form of chomping on his head).

The motto is cute; they have the "make everything worse" spiel again from the Hoenn motto, which is a nice, subtle reference, and the motto overall has the more poetic quality that the Japanese mottoes have. The first time Team Rocket did this new motto, Jessie actually had a rose like the one James always has when she said "A rose by any other name's just as sweet" (held in her teeth no less) but sadly this rose has failed to reappear.

For once Team Rocket managed to tick off Ash's rival too (this may have happened with Gary too, I don't remember), since in one ep they interrupted a battle between Paul and Ash. They even called him "the new twerp," grouping him with Ash's group.

Oh and there's a new guy who's bound to be a recurring character: Nando, a minstrel guy with a harp and a suave, foreign-sounding voice and a bud-like Pokemon named Badew or something like that. Turns out it's the new first-stage Pokemon for Roselia, a Pokemon we saw often in the Hoenn seasons cause May's rival Drew had one. He has decided to go for both gym badges AND contest ribbons, proving for the first time you can be both a Pokemon trainer AND a Pokemon coordinator at once. So even if we don't see him at the gyms, he'll probably appear at the contests.

Ok gotta go and get dressed...I have to leave for work in an hour and a half, and I'm not dressed...ack.